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Martin Walker-Watson
My first art residency was in the
Himalayas for 8 years between 1974 and 1982. Studying in Dharamsala, I
made pilgrimages to sacred sites and set-up a studio specialising
in photographing thankas, gompas and the local temples. Dharamsala
was a quiet little town in those days but I had extraordinary neighbours
and teachers. Geshe Rabten lived at the bottom of the garden, Ling
Rinpoche next door, and Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama
Zopa Rinpoche were busy setting up Tushita. I studied the basics of grids and drawing
Buddhas. His Holiness the Dalai Lama suggested
a Burmese meditation course would be helpful, and so there followed for
me a period as an ordained Theravada monk in what was then Rangoon,
Burma.
I made my
way on to Thailand, graduating Accredited Gemmologist at the Asian
Institute of Gemmological Sciences and with further studies in California
graduating in Jewelery Manufacturing Arts from the Gemological Institute
of America. For the next 10
years I worked in the jewellery business for a goldsmith, Smiths of
Cayman in the West Indies specializing in salvaged coins from shipwrecks
and high-end custom made jewellery. My Dharma studies continued with the
Kalachakra initiation in Los Angeles 1989, and not long after I was
invited to assist with the gilding of Burmese style meditation pagodas and Buddha thrones in Australia, the U.S. and in Europe.
My second
extended residency, again in Dharamsala was for 6 years from the mid
1990’s to the early 2000s. I established the Gilding Arts Studio on
Upper Dharamkot and started taking commissions to gild precious Holy Objects. I renovated the old shepherd’s
cottage where I had spent many years in retreat, and ran jeep-safaris to
Lahaul, Spiti, Kinnaur as well as Ladakh and Kashmir. After my marriage
to Mary we moved to Bruny Island in Southern Tasmania.
My third
extended residency in the Himalayas was from 2008. We spent a year
in Lhasa, Tibet as Mary was running a Maternal and Child Health NGO, and then
another 4 years in Nepal. I had set up my studio in Lhasa gilding tsa tsa
and visited many of the art workshops creating the new statues for
the reconstructed gompas. In 2009 we moved the
NGO to Nepal and continued our work there. I started to work with the
metal workers in Kathmandu, partnering with the Shakya brothers in
Patan. We would design the work with drawings somewhat similar to the
initial stage of painting a thanka. The form would be crafted by hand in
copper repoussé and I would then gild these sculptures with gold-leaf
and finally Open the Eyes. Some pieces have taken many hundred of hours
to complete.
My first
solo exhibition called Sacred Buddhist Art for the 21st
Century was held in Dharamsala in 2010 at the Peak Art Gallery. Many of
the artworks are the result of that collaboration with the repoussé
master craftsmen of
Patan. My studio is on Bruny Island, south of Hobart.
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